Abrasive-filled resins are known and employed in the fabrication of abrasive tools such as cutting and grinding wheels. Grinding wheels containing superabrasive materials (e.g., diamond or cubic boron nitride, CBN) in the edge or outer periphery of a circular grinding wheel or grinding cup also are well-known in the fields of sawing, drilling, dressing, grinding, lapping, polishing, and other abrading applications. For these applications, the grit typically is surrounded in a matrix of a metal, such as Ni, Cu, Fe, Co, Sn, W, Ti, or an alloy thereof, or in a resin, such as phenol formaldehyde or other thermosetting polymeric material. By attaching the matrices to a body or other support, tools may be fabricated having the capability to cut through such hard, abrasive materials as concrete, asphalt, masonry, ceramic, brick, granite, marble, and other rock. A typical such wheel is formed from a central metal disk having an aperture or a spindle for spinning the wheel in use. The outer periphery of the wheel, then, has a diamond-containing matrix bonded thereto. For wheels where the diamond is surrounded by a resin, the operator often cures the resin and bonds the resinous segments to the inner wheel by compression molding. Conventional bonding resins are used.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,167,674 describes grinding wheels manufactured from a conventional inner core to which is adhesively bonded a mixture of superabrasive grit, a bis-maleimide-triazine addition copolymer resin, free-radical initiator, and catalyst. This mixture is compression molded to form a grinding segment annulus.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,314,512 describes injection molding of saw segments from superabrasive particles and a non-porous thermoplastic polymer. The molded saw segments then are affixed to the periphery of a saw blade.
European Patent No. 794,850 B1 describes cutting segments manufactured from superabrasive particles molded with a thermoplastic material wherein the superabrasive particles are oriented in a chosen direction and there is porosity in the molded segments.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,054,425 and 4,088,729 describe molding a hub into a phenol-based thermoplastic resin-grinding wheel.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,960,516 describes manufacturing a grinding cup wherein the supporting part is molded as a part of the grinding cup to ensure a secure attachment.
There is a need for curable, abrasive-filled resin compositions that allow fast preparation of cutting and grinding tools having improved wear characteristics.
Disclosed herein are several embodiments of a resin composition, its reaction product, a method for its preparation, and articles derived from it.
In one embodiment, a curable resin composition comprises a poly(arylene ether), an acryloyl monomer, an allylic monomer, and an abrasive filler.
In another embodiment, a cured resin composition comprises the reaction product of a poly(arylene ether), an acryloyl monomer, an allylic monomer, and an abrasive filler.
Yet another embodiment is a method of preparing the curable resin composition.
Still other embodiments are articles comprising the cured resin composition and methods for their preparation.